Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate

by S. J. A. Turney

  "Of course not, sir. I was simply pointing out…"

  "Let me repeat myself just once, centurion. Take a cohort and forge me a path west."

  "Yes sir" Balventius replied through grinding teeth.

  As Sabinus turned his horse with difficulty among the press of men and rode off back towards the knot of signifers and musicians, Balventius eyed the situation. There was no way he could see that any attempted break out west would succeed. Back to the east there was no stretch of pits and caltrops, just enemy infantry who could be fought through. There was a good chance that - with heavy losses admittedly - a breakout back east towards the camp would be a success.

  With a deep breath, he called to the nearest pilus prior - the centurion commanding a cohort.

  "Lucanius? Get your lads ready for a push."

  "Sir?"

  "You heard me. I want them tight and well-shielded. We form a wide wedge and stay as close to formation as possible, driving ahead down the valley, opening a path for everyone else."

  Lucanius stared at his primus pilus, but the expression on Balventius' face said it all, and he gave a professional nod.

  Balventius watched for a few heartbeats as the centurion gave out his instructions. The other centurions and optios and signifers listened in disbelief, occasionally ducking and diving, one optio too slow and taking an arrow in the neck as he opened his mouth to object. The man disappeared into the press with a gurgle and a spray of crimson.

  "Form!"

  Balventius stepped forward, falling in towards the rear of the formation, where the optio who had just crossed to Elysium would have been standing, goading the men on with his stick. The soldiers cast fearful glances at him, more terrified of doing something wrong in the close proximity of their primus pilus than of facing the forces arrayed before them.

  The moment the last shield thudded into place, a single thump lost among a cacophony of sounds, Lucanius blew his whistle and the other centurions and optios in the formation began to bellow the commands. Balventius remained silent, preferring to watch his officers at work rather than take his place in the command structure. He was here not to command but rather because no senior centurion should send his men into a situation he himself was not willing to face.

  The force began to move and Balventius was immediately impressed with Lucanius' level of control. The cohort formed a rough wedge but with a flattened tip. Their primary concern was not to punch through the spear men at this point, but to make sure enough men got past the wreckage of the cavalry and the pits and caltrops to reform into a wedge at the far side. Then they would punch through the infantry.

  Gods willing.

  Through reliance on his lesser officers playing their part perfectly, Lucanius did not begin to move at the standard pace as was customary, but fell straight into the full pace that came just before a charge. Despite the move from stationary to startling speed in an instant, the formation held tight, every officer shouting and directing the men under his command.

  The blunted wedge moved into the field of death, the remaining cohorts of the Eighth closing up the huge oval in the valley behind them and contracting the edge to create a good, solid shieldwall.

  Despite the best efforts of Lucanius and his men, the formation began to break up as they reached the anti-cavalry defences. The necessity of skirting pits both empty and occupied, of clambering over the bodies of horses and men, combined with occasional soldiers falling away as their foot was impaled by the iron spike of a caltrop that had eluded his careful gaze all took their toll. It was remarkable really that Lucanius managed to keep any semblance of formation, and Balventius found himself moving forward through the chaos, passing the struggling legionaries.

  Every pace forwards brought him and the insane charge closer to the far edge of the defences and the waiting spearmen, who had reformed to block the valley beyond, having driven off the cavalry. Sadly, the breakup of the wedge formation had destroyed the tight testudo roof around the periphery and now the missiles of the Eburones on the hillsides were having a devastating effect. No matter what direction Balventius turned his head, he saw a man vanish, an arrow plunging deep into the soft flesh between the chin and the neckline of a mail shirt, rupturing organs and entering until only the flights protruded, a slingshot smashing so hard into the side of a helmet that the man was literally spun around before he fell, his brain damaged by the deep crease in the helmet punching through his temple, a spear striking so hard with the fall from above that despite being unable to penetrate a mail shirt, it threw the man from his feet and deep into one of the horse-trenches.

  Men were dying so fast Balventius could hardly count them falling.

  In a vain attempt to distract his attention from the grisly numbers, Balventius' gaze rose to the hillsides only to bring him fresh hopelessness. The Eburones' infantry at the western end of the valley sides were now pouring down to come to the aid of the spearmen and prevent the cohort from achieving anything.

  Perhaps he could have bent the rules and sent the cohort up the slope instead of along the flat? But that plan would have brought its own difficulties and would likely have been no easier. None of it made any real sense.

  His gaze fell ahead again, trying to locate Lucanius so that he could apprise his centurion of the fresh threat, but he could see the pilus prior already glancing back and forth at the two incoming forces. Half a moment later came the command for a charge. Such a headlong run in this mangled wreckage of bodies and deadly traps was little more than suicide, but it was also their only hope to take on the spearmen before the rest of the Eburones managed to descend the hill and reinforce them.

  The shrill blowing of whistles and accompanying shouts echoed the order and a moment later the already fragmented wedge descended into chaos, all hope of a shielded formation gone, every man running for his life to reach the waiting spearmen.

  With the determination of the professional soldier Balventius locked his attention on the waiting enemy, refusing to allow himself the luxury of worrying about those men falling to traps and missiles as they ran, concentrating on hurdling bodies and dips, avoiding the evil spiked caltrops and reaching those spearmen, his mind running through the standard manoeuvres of infantry close-combat and everything he knew of Gallic tactics.

  And then, suddenly - his attention so riveted - he was out in the open. It took him so much by surprise that he almost ran straight into the enemy. He had moved so fast in his singularity of purpose that he was now among the leading men of what had been the wedge, Lucanius only a few paces away to his right. The white-haired professional centurion leading the attack began bellowing more orders and the men arriving between the last few pits began to fall into position.

  A swathe of grass perhaps thirty paces long was all that separated the spearmen from the arriving Roman cohort. Missiles were falling with considerably less regularity and accuracy here, so much further along from the archers' positions and too close to their own forces to risk too many wild shots.

  The rest of the tribe, descending the slope, were almost here already and Balventius weighed everything up as the new, sharp, Roman wedge began to form in preparation for a punch through that bristling hedge of iron and bronze points.

  There was a very good chance that they would break through the spearmen only to find the rest of the tribe on foot gathering beyond.

  But there was a possibility now. Against all the odds - and despite his shock at Sabinus issuing the order in the first place - it seemed that the wedge had actually survived the worst stretch and might be strong enough to drive a gap through the enemy. They could do it. They had lost probably near half the cohort already to the traps and the missiles in that crazed run, but half a cohort could still do it.

  Lucanius seemed to be having the same thoughts. The wedge was still forming as he gave the order to advance. Speed was now of the essence. The other men would have to run and catch up to fall in.

  "The Fourteenth 'as seen!" A legionary close to Balve
ntius shouted. "Sir! They're comin' in support!"

  Balventius strained to hear over the din and became quickly aware of commands being blasted out on cornu and buccina back at the main force. It made sense. There was a chance now, but the rest of the army would have to leap on it. They should already be moving forward to take advantage of his cohort's sacrifice.

  He blinked and shook his head in disbelief at what he was hearing.

  "Either you need your ears cleaning out or to relearn your orders, soldier. That's the damn recall!"

  Lucanius had heard and was staring at him in shock.

  "Sir?"

  "Yes I heard it too. What are they thinking?"

  "What do we do?"

  Balventius turned to look at the enemy. The cohort, advancing as they had been, were now a mere ten paces from the points of those spears. Retreating into that killing zone again would be a disaster. It was also orders. They could continue on their attack - by all rights that was exactly what they should do - but with no support coming, they would have nowhere to go. Tired and unfamiliar with the territory, they would be dead within the hour.

  "We fall back!"

  "Sir?"

  "I said we fall back as ordered!"

  The cohort stumbled to a halt without the order needing to be given, every man disbelieving what he heard.

  "Rally on the left!" bellowed Balventius. "We're going up the slope a little and running around the defences. Their main infantry have come down to join the spearmen, so it's the quickest and easiest route."

  "We'll be at the mercy of their missiles!" Lucanius shouted.

  "Just follow my orders."

  The Eburones, shouting in triumphant glee at the sudden halt of the Romans, began to surge forward in the attack, the spearmen hungry for blood, newly-arriving warriors from the hillside filtering in amongst them.

  Balventius chewed the inside of his cheek. Speed was important, but so was protection. A testudo, then.

  "Every man of the Eighth! Rally to me and form testudo. Centurions, optios and veterans to the rear, facing the enemy."

  It would be costly on the best men in the cohort, but it was the only real option if they wanted to escape with their lives. The testudo would face back east and skirt the edge of the cavalry defences, running for the army at full pace. Hopefully they would be able to maintain the shields as they ran. It was extremely difficult at speed - which was why Balbus and he had invented the 'box' - but without speed they would fall to the infantry and without a testudo's shield-roof they would fall to the missile troops.

  Damned if you do…

  Centurions and optios and veterans to the rear was appalling tactics. They would have to fight off the pursuing infantry and back-step at full pace in line with the testudo. There was a good chance they would lose most of the officers and veterans, but they were the only men who stood a chance of pulling it off.

  The trouble they were in made itself all the more evident as the first blows from spears and swords struck even as the testudo was forming for the retreat.

  As soon as the last shield 'clonked' into position, a shout from a helpful legionary at the front brought the command to move and the entire formation began to retreat back towards the army, jogging at speed up the lower slope of the valley's southern side, skirting the pits and caltrops. The going was more than a little difficult and it gave Balventius a sense of immense pride even at this horrendous moment that his men were so professional and well-drilled that they kept a uniform pace and the shields in place despite the gradient and the rabbit holes and more that threatened to ruin their retreat.

  Balventius' world shrank to that of a testudo soldier: a hot, sweaty, stinking metallic world mostly of darkness, with cracks of light between the shields and one single slit ahead at eye level through which he could see the spear points of the Eburones continually lunging at the formation, trying to hit the gaps and take out the men.

  Half his concentration was taken up with walking backwards at the brisk pace and managing not to separate from the rest of the formation or trip over them and bring the whole group down. It was a credit to the Eighth how well the veterans and officers were coping with the near-impossible manoeuvres.

  The downside was that that left only half their attention for the following Eburones.

  As they neared the range of the missile weapons once more the sounds of stones, slingshots, arrows and the occasional cast spear cracked, smashed and pinged on shields everywhere, Every ten heartbeats or so there was a squawk as a spear punched through a raised shield with the added weight of gravity and pinned the wielder's shield to his arm and his arm to his torso, or a stray arrow or sling shot hit between the cracks and maimed a soldier, felling him among the press of men, who had no option but to walk over him and on to the east.

  The rear rank began to find the going all the harder as they were forced to step backwards over their fallen comrades.

  And then the first disaster struck. One of the Eburones chasing them swung a huge decorative axe which bit into the shieldwall, almost severing an optio's arm. As the warrior yanked the weapon back it ripped two of the shields from the line, along with a sizeable piece of the forearm. The spearmen around the axe-wielding warrior immediately leapt on their opportunity and jabbed with their weapons, striking home again and again into the bodies of the two men whose shields had gone, inflicting a dozen horrendous wounds to each man, ripping ragged holes in necks, faces, chests, groins, bellies and legs. The optio and the veteran disappeared with screams, lost in the ranks of howling Gauls as the testudo moved on, two of the men from the middle turning to try and take their place.

  But the damage was already done. Two enterprising Eburones cast their spears into the gap and one replacement legionary fell while turning, bringing down his closest companions. The formation foundered and slowed.

  Across the right side of the line a lucky or very well-aimed spear-thrust punched through a shield and when hauled back yanked the shield out of the line, the legionary behind it finding himself pulled bodily from the formation and onto the ground before the enemy.

  As the formation began to reform and fill the gaps to move on, Lucanius suddenly howled - a sound of sheer anguish and horror that drew Balventius' gaze. In shock, he watched the senior centurion who had led the entire engagement cast his shield aside and fall out of line. Lucanius lunged towards the figure of the unfortunate legionary, who was now being hacked to pieces by another axe man.

  Something triggered in Balventius' memory and he remembered disapproving of Lucanius pulling strings to transfer his son into his own century. It never did a man good to be serving in the same unit as his family, as was evidenced by the terrible scene now unfolding. Forgetting his duty to the entire cohort, the panicked Lucanius ran at the enemy in a vain attempt to save his son.

  It was stupid.

  Clearly the lad was already dead. His neck was half severed from a single axe blow and his head lolled to one side as it sprayed a torrent of crimson across the man busy cutting off his other limbs with the half-moon blade.

  "Shit!"

  It was almost as bad as Lucanius's own stupidity, but Balventius was already out of formation himself, shield held high to ward off the spears as they thudded towards his face. Jamming his sword into the handy little crack in one of the shield struts that he'd cultivated for just that purpose, Balventius reached out and grasped Lucanius' wrist as the man raised his sword.

  "Not now!"

  The centurion was beyond reason, however, and simply pulled himself from Balventius' grasp, throwing himself at the hedge of spears. He never landed a blow. The first spear caught him in the armpit, throwing him back and to the ground, catching in his mail. As Lucanius' sword fell from his grasp, two of the Eburones grabbed his legs and started hauling him into the mass of howling barbarians.

  Balventius watched in impotent horror as the centurion disappeared, screaming, beneath the mass of enemy warriors.

  The second disaster was, by his ow
n actions, Balventius' fault. He'd broken the rules in trying to rescue Lucanius in the same way the short sighted father had done in an attempt to save his son; and just the same as both of them, Balventius now paid the price for his breach of discipline.

  A spear thrust slammed into his right thigh just above the knee, severing muscles and ripping free of the side of the leg in a shower of flesh and blood. The primus pilus staggered and almost fell, a hand grasping his shoulder and hauling him back into the formation. Just as he limped and lurched into the line, raising his shield against other attacks, another spear thrust smashed into his left thigh, close to the hip. His legs vanished beneath him, fiery pain coursing through his system, neither leg having the strength now to support him.

  Balventius felt himself fall; felt the searing agony of his severed muscles. He felt hands grasping him.

  Idiots!

  If they didn't leave him they wouldn't be able to close up the line. They had to drop him. Summoning up all his strength, he threw his shield at the enemy, yanking his blade from its place as he did so. Lucanius never had the chance, but Balventius would take a few of the bastards with him. With the last of his strength, he wrenched himself free of the grasping legionaries and felt his legs fail; felt himself falling again. His hand remained tight on his sword ready to jab at anything that came within reach.

  Something struck him on the head and he had the faint impression of his brains leaking out of his head as they ran, liquid-like, down his face and into his good eye.

  Blackness descended to escort him to Elysium.

  * * * * *

  Cotta was watching the worst military debacle of his generation unfold before his very eyes. Sabinus had ordered Balventius to take a force out west, which was clearly a move destined merely to sacrifice a sizeable force of veterans to the enemy. He should have stopped the mad bastard issuing that order and still he'd stayed quiet. And yet, the one-eyed old bastard who led the Eighth had been on the very verge of achieving the unachievable. He'd been about to break through the Eburones and open the way to leave the valley.